


your elements reassembled

by am_fae



Category: Stormlight Archive - Brandon Sanderson
Genre: (winks really badly), Age Difference, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Book 04: Rhythm of War, Book 04: Rhythm of War Spoilers, Consent Discussion, Kaladin (Stormlight Archive) Needs a Hug, M/M, Nightmares, Odium is a bitch, Visions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-20
Updated: 2021-03-20
Packaged: 2021-03-28 22:53:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30146817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/am_fae/pseuds/am_fae
Summary: Dalinar brings Kaladin into a vision during the events of Rhythm of War, and some truths come to light.
Relationships: Kaladin/Dalinar Kholin
Comments: 4
Kudos: 6





	your elements reassembled

**Author's Note:**

> I remember nothing about the plot timeline in RoW. Don't sue me  
> Way of Kings was a romance novel about a man burned by his former commanding officer daring to love again ❤️

_Kaladin,_ Dalinar said, remembering the young man holding on to the outside of the tower, feet slipping as he fell into the harsh, slanting rain. Dalinar had stretched the bounds of what he knew themselves capable of to catch him with the Stormfather’s arms. At least they knew Kaladin was awake in Urithiru, if he had survived whatever he found within. _Can you bring him into a vision?_

The Stormfather hummed a sound like the roll of distant thunder. It sounded strangely pleasant. Approving, even.

_I CAN BRING HIM TO YOU._

_Thank you,_ Dalinar thought, gravely serious. Just the thought of seeing the Highmarshal again, having some proof that he was alive and intact, brought a rush of relief like breathing in Stormlight.

He remembered too well the look on the young man’s face when he’d relieved him of active duty, the rebuke and horror in those too-light eyes at finding himself suddenly unmoored. At Dalinar for unmooring him. The way Kaladin had barely been able to hold himself at attention, staggering with exhaustion as if the wind might catch him and blow him off his feet at any moment and carry him away—away from him—

Dalinar cleared his throat awkwardly at the memory, unclenching his hands on the low table before him in his quarters of the camp’s storm shelter.

He should never have allowed Kaladin to run himself so ragged. The Highmarshal certainly wouldn’t have, were it one of his men. A good commander needed to do better—to _be_ better than Dalinar was, and Kaladin was the living proof of that unflinching responsibility, that selfless, steady bravery. Dalinar had been told the Almighty was dead, but those words could not touch him when Honor lived in Kaladin’s heart, alive and eternal as a sacred flame.

Not for the first time, he wondered if he had resisted sending Stormblessed from the front lines out of his own selfishness. An old man’s foolish yearnings. It had been that sobering thought that finally forced him to action. He would _not_ watch one of the greatest blessings of his life fray to pieces before his eyes when there was something he could do to stop it. That was something the old Dalinar would have done— _had_ done. For Roshar’s sake and his own, for Kaladin, he had to be better. He had to _do_ better.

 _I DO NOT SENSE HIM._ The Stormfather’s rumbling voice overtook Dalinar’s senses. _OR… NO._ The spren sounded oddly uncertain. _HE IS THERE, AT THE TOWER, YET HIDDEN. AS IF SOMETHING ELSE IS SURROUNDING HIM. I CAN…_

The storm shelter around Dalinar tilted beneath his feet and disappeared. He awoke in a high-ceilinged room overlooking a city in the valley where Kholinar now lay, its whitewashed crem walls tiled and painted. Was it a new vision the Stormfather had created, or simply part of another he had never explored? He heard the soft, musing boom of distant thunder.

Dalinar’s eyes barely had the chance to adjust to the whirl of color and light that marked his new surroundings. Yet none of the details that would have fascinated Navani or Jasnah meant anything when they fixed on the man standing before him. Dalinar would know him anywhere, despite the unfamiliar, archaic clothes. Kaladin didn’t seem to _see_ him. The young man shook like a leaf in the wind.

In his nightmare, Kaladin watched the men of Bridge Four cut down before his eyes. Amaram’s soldiers gripped his wrists, forcing him to his knees on the rich carpet of the command tent. Kaladin fell hard, staring at Sigzil’s slashed throat, red against the deep brown of his skin. The blood had seeped wetly into the thick threads. He couldn’t feel Syl.

Kaladin was sobbing.

“We’ve been here before,” Amaram said. “You didn’t really think it would end differently.”

“Please. Not Teft. Not Lopen. Please. I’ll do anything, only—”

“It was all for _you_.” Amaram summoned a Shardblade whose screams blended with Huio’s, with—Kaladin screamed in helpless fury—Teft’s eyes burned—

“Your selfishness. _Your_ dream world.”

_Was it?_

“No. No…”

That was Moash’s voice in his ear now, as dark and familiar as his own thoughts. “Maybe he’s right, Kal.” He patted his shoulder in easy camaraderie. “Look what you did to me.”

Kaladin turned towards him blindly. There he was, as beautiful as he had always been, and Kaladin’s body shied away with the instinctive memory of pain. “Moash—” 

“Oh, Kal. I wouldn’t have left if I hadn’t seen it. I wouldn’t have hurt you. Don’t you know I had good reasons? You used to trust me.” He shook his head, smiling as he stood. Kaladin shuddered, staring at the blue-coated corpses that filled the tent. Sah was there, and Cord, and Lirin... “I could have stopped this,” Moash whispered. “I could make it go away.”

“You can’t,” Kaladin sobbed.

Amaram slit Moash’s throat in one neat motion and Moash’s lean body crumpled smoothly to his feet in another. Kaladin broke the grip of the men holding him, stumbling on his friends’ corpses as he staggered out of the tent, running out onto the Plains, anywhere—anywhere away from—

Dalinar. _No._ The man was bleeding from a thousand wounds, red staining the deep Kholin blue of that decorated uniform. Kaladin sobbed, crouching on the stone of the plateau, reaching for bandages he didn’t have, trying to staunch the bleeding with helpless, shaking hands. It didn’t matter, he knew. He already knew how this one ended. But he couldn’t stop himself, seeing him like that, it was like the whole world had shattered, he couldn’t—

Dalinar coughed blood onto the stone, and Kaladin tried to reassure him, cradling his head in his lap. “I was wrong to place my trust in you.”

“Sir—” Kaladin’s voice broke. He couldn’t raise a hand to stifle the sob that escaped his lips—both were needed to apply pressure to Dalinar’s wounds. He had failed. He was failing him, even now.

“Where were you, Kaladin? Where were you in Kholinar? At Thaylen City? You swore a vow to protect.”

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Please just let me—I can tend you—”

Dalinar’s blue eyes had clouded with pain. Now they fixed on Kaladin again, cold and distant. “Didn’t I dismiss you? Stormfather, soldier, you were supposed to know what that meant.”

“No.” The world tilted around him. “No, you wouldn’t—”

Something was different about his voice, wrong from that honest, beloved face. _“You knew it then…”_

“No!” Kaladin drew back, recoiling in horror, and blood seeped like a stream between his fingers. Dalinar’s faraway eyes were still and dead, his body motionless in Kaladin’s arms as Kaladin did everything he could to resuscitate it. He had no bandages, no treatments, but how could he leave him? Kaladin touched Dalinar’s cheek with bloodstained hands, more familiar than he would ever have dared to be in life. He had always known himself unworthy to touch him, hadn’t he? At the very least, he was sure Dalinar would see him as such. Unworthy to love—to want—to even think of—

He _was_. He had failed Dalinar Kholin, the man who kept saving his life, who had trusted him, who had extended a hand to him, just as surely as if he’d killed him with his own hands. The thought was a knife to the chest. It cracked Kaladin’s ribs open like the Shardplate gauntlet he had given away.

_You try to pretend you’ve forgotten. But you know._

The chasm beyond the edge of the plateau beckoned, its black depths as sweet as Moash’s voice. Kaladin’s boots slipped in blood as he clambered towards that oblivion, crawling like the wretch he was. That stumble sent him falling, his hands bleeding as they scrabbled at the rock a few desperate moments before Kaladin’s hands released— _letting_ _go_ —and he dropped like a stone into an endless night that rose eagerly to swallow him.

He couldn’t feel the wind, could no longer see the red sky retreating above him, and as he tumbled in freefall his heart beat crimson in his throat, panicked, not freed—

The world opened. He thought he could feel Syl again, their connection distant, tenuous. The blood on his skin was gone, vanishing as completely as that nightmarish sky and the crem under his boots. Something felt lighter about whatever covered his body, unlike the now-familiar weight of a uniform coat. Kaladin staggered, momentarily blinded by the light that surrounded him, struggling to catch his bearings as he stepped towards the clear blue air that showed in a sheer drop beyond waving curtains, wishing he could drink it in like Stormlight. It was a trick, wasn’t it? The light in his dreams always was.

 _Not again,_ he thought desperately. _Please._

He turned and his heart died in his chest. Dalinar stood before him, this time alive and unwounded. Horror at what must come next flooded Kaladin like the memory of blood. _Not him. Not again._ All his strength left him at once. Kaladin fell to his knees on the warm stone.

“Soldier?” Dalinar approached tentatively, placing a hand on Kaladin’s shoulder. Was this battle shock, or something worse? 

Kaladin actually sobbed at the touch. It was a sound like sharp wire, raw and exposed. It left Dalinar stunned. “Not you too,” Kaladin was saying. “Please.” He shrank away until his back hit the carven wood of the bed behind them. “Stay back. I’m dangerous.”

“Stormblessed?” Dalinar reached out to the Stormfather for reassurance.

_IT IS HIM. THOUGH HE REEKS OF ODIUM’S TOUCH._

“Sir, I can’t watch you die again.” The words tumbled from Kaladin’s lips in a panicked stream. He clutched at Dalinar’s hand on his shoulder, as if he’d moved to push it away, but couldn’t bring himself to let go.

 _Die?_ Dalinar’s head spun. _What does he mean?_

“Kaladin, you’re safe here. It’s one of my visions, and I control it. The Stormfather brought you here.”

There was a tinge of red-orange to those familiar dark eyes as they blinked, struggling to make sense of their surroundings. Dalinar had seen that look on himself in the glass—had seen—but that had been when-- _No._ No. _Not him, storm you!_

Kaladin was gripping Dalinar’s hand like a lifeline. There was fear in those eyes, and distrust after what Dalinar had said. Despair. Yet Dalinar saw him slowly try to assemble his expression, putting the shards of his composure together like the broken pieces of a cup. He met Dalinar’s eyes and his shoulders set determinedly; with effort, his chin lifted in a soldier’s attentive stance. 

It was a hard, drawn-out fight, and not without pain. Dalinar couldn’t bear to witness it to its end. He pulled Kaladin close in one abrupt motion, feeling Kaladin’s lean body tremble and melt against his own. Impossibly, Kaladin leaned _into_ the touch, a sob shaking him. Dalinar gasped a little as the young man dropped his head onto his shoulder. They were foolish fancies, selfish ones, he _knew_ that, but at that closeness, the sweetness of Kaladin’s mussed hair falling onto his chest, they struck him more completely than they ever had before. Kaladin’s shuddering warmth pierced him like a knife to the heart.

To continue embracing him surely went against any Alethi standard of propriety. But then Dalinar had never been much for propriety when it counted. He was an admittedly single-minded man, a man of action, and he had decided he would hold Kaladin so long as Kaladin held onto him. He had been the one to reach for him; it would be beyond cruel to push him away.

“You’re real?” Dalinar’s soul cracked at the low words.

“Yes,” Dalinar said. “I’m real, soldier. You’re safe.”

Kaladin exhaled, a long, shaky breath. Still he made no move to pull away. Dalinar stroked his strong back with a clumsy hand—hands that had rarely comforted even his children. It was like politicking: he knew himself unsuited for this work, but it lay before him—it must be done anyway.

All the questions Dalinar had gone over with his high command before retreating to the storm shelter fled his mind. With Kaladin barely holding himself together in his arms, the logistical intelligence they had hoped to glean from someone in Urithiru was no longer important.

“Where did you think you were?” Dalinar said, brushing Kaladin’s dark hair back with the same clumsy, reverent hand. Heralds above, his heart _ached_. How many times had he thought of that long hair, soft under his fingertips?

They were close enough that he could feel the whisper of Kaladin’s breath when the young man spoke. “I was dreaming, I think. I—” He stopped abruptly, and Dalinar could _feel_ something in the air change. “I’ve been—”

“Kaladin?”

“—I could hear them screaming.”

Dalinar remembered fire. A crimson blaze that had overtaken his senses, clouding his vision. The Thrill had abandoned him in large part after that day, rousing itself only to heat his blood with an edge more powerful than wine or firemoss. But the sickness—that had never gone away. Not truly.

He fought to return to himself. _Screams? Was Urithiru—_

“Who?” He gripped Kaladin more tightly.

“The people I failed to protect,” Kaladin said. The words tumbled out—incomprehensible, Dalinar thought. “Bridge Four. My squad. Sah… You were—you—"

"Your friends are safe in Azir," Dalinar said. "It wasn't real."

Kaladin half-sobbed, giving no indication of having heard him. "I saw you die. I failed you. I'll keep failing you." It was then that he pulled away, and startled, Dalinar let him, Kaladin slipping from his arms like a wild songling and hunching into himself. Stormfather, but the captain looked haggard. The red cast to his eyes remained.

 _Odium_ , Dalinar thought. His stomach turned.

"Kaladin, those are the words of the enemy." _Odium urged me to destroy, to lose myself in conquest. Is this what reaches a soul like his?_ The fury that swept through Dalinar then was a sharp reminder of his younger days. "He lies." Attacking Kaladin, battleshocked, brave, weary, _beautiful_ Kaladin, when he was alone, where Dalinar couldn't reach him— "It's not real. Gemheart, it's not real."

The endearment had slipped out without Dalinar even thinking about it. Kaladin's red-touched eyes widened at the word. Dark brown flickered in their depths, and bewildered confusion overtook that fevered gaze. He stared at him. "But you hate me."

" _Never,_ " Dalinar choked out. "Did he tell you that? Blood of my fathers, it would be the greatest lie of all, when—"

"When?" Kaladin whispered.

Was it hope, combined with fear in those dark eyes? Dalinar didn’t trust himself to know. He cursed himself for a fool. Even if Kaladin wanted—even if Kaladin _thought_ he wanted—how could Dalinar allow himself to take advantage of him? The young man was his sons’ age. A darkeyes who bore the scars of horrors no one should have been made to face—who’d borne them at lighteyes’ hands. Storms, Dalinar was his commanding officer. Kaladin couldn’t tell him no.

“I’ve overstepped,” Dalinar managed. “Forgive me.”

“No,” Kaladin said. His voice was dangerously tight. Dalinar breathed a shallow sigh of relief: that scorching darkeyed glare was all too familiarly _Kaladin,_ bearing no signs of Odium’s touch. _“No._ Tell me."

"Kaladin…" He’d meant to say his name as a warning, but it lived too close to his heart.

"Please." The single taut word wrenched Dalinar's soul. He had never thought to hear it from Kaladin's lips, so at odds with that defiant glare.

"I meant to express my respect," Dalinar said. He tried to restrain the emotion that lent roughness to his voice. "I care for you a great deal, soldier. You must know how fond I am of you."

 _Fondness_ , Dalinar thought with a pang. That was what it was to picture someone in your bed.

“Is that all?” Kaladin said. The words were very quiet.

There was no escape from those solemn dark eyes. Kaladin still hunched against the bed behind them, but he had sat up, trying to straighten his shoulders. He held Dalinar's gaze. _Blood of my fathers, he's the bravest man I know._

He couldn't bring himself to say 'son' the way he often fought to. Dalinar spoke in the same hushed tone, but his was that of a man defeated. "Soldier, you follow me because I have tried to be a good man. Will you not allow me even this fiction?"

"Why?" Kaladin demanded. His voice was torn by something Dalinar had never heard there before. "Does it tarnish your honor to want me? A darkeyed slave? Someone who freezes in battle?"

"A Knight Radiant," Dalinar said. "A man under my command. You're not a slave."

Kaladin's broken laugh made him fear the man mad. His hands were clenched in the folds of his takama. "Then, _storms_ , why?"

"Because I love you." Had it always been so easy to say those words? They were natural, right, on his tongue. Kaladin gasped quietly, like a patient under the knife. "Because I wouldn't harm you. I would die first."

Kaladin was shaking his head. "No. _No_. You don't get to say that. Not when I've—" His hands were white-knuckled. "I've wished—"

Heralds above, _that_ hit Dalinar like a stormwall, despite the sweet, clear air of spring around them in the vision. He felt the ground slipping beneath his feet, and knew he couldn't let Kaladin finish his sentence, or he would be lost.

"You deserve better." _Better than an old soldier with a violent past and one scandalous marriage already to his name. Better than being a lighteyes' secret._ "Someone your own age. Someone..." _Undamaged._ "Who could make you smile."

"And what about what I want?"

Dalinar felt dizzy.

"You don't know how it feels to have everything taken from you," Kaladin said. Storms, there was that steel Dalinar so loved in his voice, beneath the broken riddens of a storm. "To know, _know_ there's nothing you can do to stop it. And it keeps happening...and it only gets worse and takes more."

He thought of Evi. Renarin offering him a flask of wine.

"I—"

" _No_ ," Kaladin said. "No, you _don't_ know." Dalinar's gaze slipped towards the brands on his forehead, half-concealed by dark hair. _Sas nahn. Shash._ "And now you're saying I deserve more." His voice broke a little. " _Better._ As if I haven't learned to hold on with both hands to what's in front of me. While denying what I've wanted since the beginning. More than I ever… that I always… that _you..._ And you don't see why I want to laugh?"

"Just because you think now—"

"I'm not a slave." Kaladin had seen where his eyes had gone. "You said so yourself. Don't choose for me."

The plea—there was no other way to say those words, despite the determined set of Kaladin's jaw—wrenched his heart. Dalinar could not respond, and he could not look away.

Kaladin's lean frame trembled. His dark eyes moved over Dalinar's face the way a woman might read a particularly difficult text. They were so close together, crumpled on the tiled floor in the vision.

"Swear on your oaths that you don't want me." The words were barely above a whisper.

"I can't."

Kaladin's hand shook as it cupped the back of Dalinar's head, strong fingers running through cropped hair shot through with grey. And then his mouth was on Dalinar's, chaste and soft, and so sweet it pierced him the way a Shardblade cuts, through the soul of a thing with graceful, complete immediacy. Dalinar knew himself lost.

His arms folded around Kaladin's body as if to protect him, though this was the very thing he had meant to shield him from. Storms, it felt _right_ to hold him like this. They were _right_ together. Kaladin pressed closer eagerly, clumsily grabbing at his shoulders with his free hand. His lips parted to let Dalinar in, more intoxicating than any wine. Dalinar groaned at that, pulling him closer until Kaladin was half on his lap. He made a desperate, beautiful noise of need, and Dalinar kissed him again.

Kaladin's hands were on his shoulders, pushing him back. Dalinar gazed at him, a man in a daze.

"You don't regret it?" Even entranced as he was, he heard the unspoken question, strikingly soft from the brusque soldier: _You don't regret me?_

"No," Dalinar said, voice rough. "No, beloved. I couldn't." Not with the living warmth of Kaladin in his arms, all long limbs and lean muscle. Not when holding him felt like touching Stormlight.

He would have given anything to see that sweet bewilderment on Kaladin, hadn’t known it was possible. Dalinar tipped Kaladin’s face towards his, tasting that wonder on his lips.

“I love you. I won’t betray you.”

When he drew back again Kaladin looked as though he might shake apart, as if the Surges which bound him together were coming undone. _Let them_ , Dalinar thought _._ If he fell, Dalinar would catch him. 

Then Kaladin kissed him so fervently he nearly toppled him backwards.

 _Eager,_ Dalinar thought, marveling. He tugged Kaladin close, the young man's desperate passion mirrored by the flame that kindled in his own heart. Storms, he could get used to this, to the sweet noises Kaladin made as he kissed Dalinar with clumsy inexperience, as he let Dalinar's arms slide greedily down the curve of his back. They settled under Kaladin's strong thighs and Dalinar stood, staggering a little as he adjusted the weight in his arms. Kaladin moaned at the movement, holding tightly to his shoulders with a spearman's coarse calluses. When Dalinar set him on the soft, low bed—some older style—he saw that Kaladin's cheeks were flushed darkly, aglow through his swarthy Alethi tan. He was looking at Dalinar like—

 _Almighty above, a man could get used to that_.

The desire that pulsed through Dalinar at that moment stunned him. He settled on the bed, reaching out to touch Kaladin's cheek, his dark hair falling about his neck in wavy tendrils, the tanned chest beneath the gauzy blue shirt he wore over that strange takama. The graceful line of Kaladin's throat, bobbing as he swallowed, fixed his attention, and Dalinar could have wept for the beauty before him.

Kaladin wanted him. The younger man's hardness showed against the light cloth of the takama, and he was all but squirming in Dalinar's arms, despite his dazed expression. He whimpered as Dalinar's hand glided towards the belt at his hips, arching up into his touch.

"Do you want this?" Dalinar murmured. "Are you sure?"

"Yes." The sigh turned into a moan when Dalinar touched him through the cloth. Kaladin blushed redder. "Please. Don't go back."

He kissed the warm skin between shoulder and neck, breathing in the scent of him, and untied Kaladin's belt with deftly practiced hands. Silently, he offered up an incoherent prayer to all the Heralds, mortal or otherwise, that he be allowed to do this _right._ Dalinar might be an old fool with blood on his hands, but those hands could bind, too. They could bring Kaladin pleasure without harming him.

With reverent need, Dalinar pulled the sash away, kissing Kaladin as he unwrapped the takama, revealing a lean, muscled body only barely concealed by the open shirt that remained. There were scars on that body, the sorts of battle souvenirs that mirrored Dalinar's own skin—and others, too. But Kaladin was as radiant as if he'd breathed in Stormlight, bare and flushed with the arousal so evident against his stomach.

"Beautiful," Dalinar breathed, kissing him. "Storms, more beautiful than I ever could have dreamed you, beloved." His hand slid down between their bodies, wrapping around Kaladin in a firm grasp that made the other man moan against his mouth. "Is that good?"

" _Yes_ ," Kaladin sighed. Storms, he felt _right_ under his hand, supple and hot. How long had it been since Dalinar had done this with another man? It must have been years, and no other man could ever have been as beautiful as Kaladin; no other kisses so piercingly sweet. Dalinar's hands itched to explore that long, lissom body, to touch and taste and possess until Kaladin was _known_ , down to the slightest response of pleasure. No, he was getting ahead of himself: he felt Kaladin reaching out for him. "Just... just hold me. Don't let me go."

"I couldn't," Dalinar promised, tightening the arm around Kaladin's waist. He stroked him, feeling the young man's hardness fill out in his palm. Kaladin clung to his shoulders with strong arms as Dalinar pressed him back into the pillows. Those dark eyes were as dark as Dalinar had ever seen them, Kaladin's kiss-swollen mouth slack and whimpering as Dalinar touched him. "Storms, it's like you were made for my touch."

"Please," Kaladin gasped. Were those tears in his eyes?

"Anything you want, beloved."

"You—you call me that," Kaladin managed, falling back against the pillows. Dazed as he was, he plainly struggled for each word.

Dalinar smiled, unable to resist kissing that mouth soft with confusion. "Because it's true."

That sweet daze on Kaladin's face—those were tears, slipping onto his cheek—was worth at least a hundred Shardblades. The young man tried to lean up towards his lips and Dalinar gave them to him, teasing him lightly so Kaladin whined into the kiss. His hips stuttered against Dalinar's hand, craving more of that touch.

 _He wants me_ , Dalinar thought again, dizzied at the blessing he had received. He kissed the graceful, sweat-damp curve of Kaladin's throat, overwhelmed—honored—

"Please, sir," Kaladin babbled. The words hit like a highstorm, and Dalinar became suddenly painfully aware of his own arousal straining the cloth of the takama. He groaned, kissing down Kaladin's skin, working that perfect, slick cock with his hand. "Please—It feels so _good—_ " 

A tear fell onto Dalinar's jaw as he angled his head to kiss Kaladin's throat as he stroked him, that beloved pulse beating just under the skin. Kaladin _gasped_ , tension strung through his body. He spilled into his hand with a moan that Dalinar wished he could hold in his mind forever.

Kaladin panted, fighting to catch his breath and trembling against him. Dalinar sighed, as shaken as he was.

"Heralds above, you're beautiful." He brushed back dark hair from that flushed cheek. "The most beautiful thing I've ever seen."

"I…" Kaladin stared up at him, dazed. Dalinar kissed the tears from his cheeks. "Thank you."

The sheer sweet earnestness of those words smote Dalinar's heart. 

“Storms, was any man ever so lucky?” he murmured.

“Lucky?” Kaladin’s brow was clear, untroubled. He was lovely, still a-shiver with pleasure, the accent of a darkeyed farming village coming through more strongly in his voice.

“Soldier, with you in my bed, I’m the luckiest man on Roshar.” On a whim, Dalinar drew his own hand to his lips, licking Kaladin’s spend from his callused palm, relishing the unfamiliar taste of him. He wished he could draw the very bright essence of his soul into himself, hold Kaladin so closely that the lines between them blurred.

Kaladin gasped mid-sentence, staring. He hadn’t thought it was possible for the young man to blush more darkly. His gaze fixed on Dalinar’s lips, and with Kaladin’s own mouth open in shock, Dalinar couldn’t resist claiming it, letting him taste himself on Dalinar’s tongue. Kaladin made a startled, pleased noise before pulling him closer so Dalinar’s hardness pressed against his thigh and Dalinar couldn’t hold back a groan of want. 

His hands fumbled over Dalinar’s clothing, trying to reach him. “I can… Let me...”

Somehow that felt more improper--more like taking advantage--than everything they had already shared. He kissed Kaladin’s mussed hair, drawing back to see his face. “You want that?”

“Storms, yes.” Kaladin propped himself up on his elbows, smiling. _Smiling_ , Dalinar thought, awed.

“Are you sure? I wouldn’t…" _I would not use you._

Kaladin's brow furrowed, and Dalinar cursed himself for making that smile vanish. He shook his head, dark hair slipping over his shoulders. "You couldn't... I _want_ you. I—I thought of this. Of you, sir."

Dalinar's breath caught, and he fought not to moan. "Almighty, if you knew what it does to me to hear you say that."

"I want you," Kaladin repeated. He looked at Dalinar as though he knew the plain words were falling. Dalinar knew he did not have the capability to truly know how brave they were, coming from a man such as Kaladin. But he would take him in his arms and keep him close and safe. "I want to know. Let me…"

He broke off in a gasp as Dalinar took Kaladin's slimmer hand in his own and drew it to him, groaning at the relief of Kaladin's callused palm pressing through the cloth. "There."

Kaladin whined, tugging clumsily at Dalinar's clothes to expose him. He was inexperienced, and Dalinar barely fit in his hands, despite their long surgeon's fingers. He was the sweetest thing Dalinar had felt since the first time Navani had taken him to bed. _Almighty, how did I ever earn such blessings?_

"Go slowly, beloved," Dalinar said, kissing him and tangling Kaladin's hair in his hand. "I want this to last."

It was a sweet moment and eternity later that they lay curled together in the bed. Kaladin rested his head on his chest, Dalinar's arms wound around his waist. He could feel Kaladin trembling.

"What are you thinking?" Dalinar asked, still blissfully satiated from the force of his release.

"Are you really there?"

Dalinar closed his eyes, absorbing the quiet words like a blow, burying his face in that lovely dark hair. "Yes. Yes, soldier, I'm here."

He felt Kaladin's breath catch. "And you... you…"

"I won't forget you when we return," Dalinar promised. "I won't abandon you. I swear it with every shred of honor I have."

Kaladin paused at that, and Dalinar changed their positions, drawing back to see his face.

"I trust you," Kaladin said very softly. It was more of a promise, a hope for the future, than a statement of fact. Kaladin found Dalinar's hand and held on, squeezing it. He exhaled, and Dalinar heard a story of raw, wretched exhaustion in that breath. "More than I trust myself."

"Are you safe?"

Kaladin laughed. Dalinar pulled him closer, wishing his arms could shield him outside of the vision.

"Tell me how I can help you," he said, the words stirring Kaladin's night-soft hair. "Tell me what's going on in Urithiru."

Dalinar's heart straitened at the raggedness of Kaladin's voice. He didn't speak of Odium's assaults on his mind, but Dalinar read horror in Kaladin's silences, in the places in his account where he was sleepless or impossible to rouse, where he made mistakes, where Kaladin cut himself off mid-sentence.

His own mind was baffled by the things Kaladin found most important to convey to him about the occupation, even as he felt a surge of pride and affection for both the people he loved. He said the same things. _We'll recapture the tower. I’ll share this with high command. You did well, soldier._

Kaladin reported a list of defenses and armaments with the attentive ease of a practiced soldier, and Dalinar quizzed him as he did, recording as much as he could in his mind. Yet each of Kaladin’s words seemed to take more and more effort, and when he reached the end of that grim reckoning he was quiet, a shudder running through the lean body in Dalinar’s arms. He seemed almost afraid to meet Dalinar’s eyes.

_You’ve done so much. Too much._

"Take care,” Dalinar said gently. “I beg it of you. Don’t damage the best man I’ve got.”

For a moment Kaladin looked as if he were about to protest. Then, as those dark eyes met Dalinar’s own, the tension in him melted away. 

“I’ll try, sir. I’m—I’m trying.”

Would Dalinar ever get enough of touching Kaladin? He stroked the other man’s tanned back, pulling him closer. “I’ll be waiting for you,” he said. “On the other side.”

Kaladin made a choked-off sound and hid his face against Dalinar’s shoulder. Dalinar’s broad arms wrapped around him. “I’ll hold you to that.”

At the thought, Dalinar’s lips twitched upwards. “I hope you will.”

Kaladin shivered and pressed closer, their legs intertwining. Dalinar’s arms settled more easily around his waist.

They fell into a silence broken only by Kaladin’s quiet breaths. 

Quiet, even breaths. The last vestiges of tension slipped from that strong body, and his head lolled on Dalinar’s chest, sending wavy dark hair across Dalinar’s face. Dalinar fought back a grin. The young man was utterly asleep. For his part, Dalinar couldn’t close his eyes, memorizing the sweetness of Kaladin resting in his arms, abed with him, as if he could breathe it in like Stormlight. His limbs began to protest numbly at the awkwardness of their position, but Dalinar wouldn’t move and risk waking him.

 _How much time do we have?_ He wasn’t sure if the Stormfather would answer, but distant thunder rumbled, almost softly, muffled.

_NOT LONG. THE STORM PASSES, AND I HAVE—I HAVE HELD HIM BACK._

_What did you give us? I haven’t seen this vision before._

_A MEMORY,_ the Stormfather rumbled. _A DREAM. FROM THE TIME WHEN HONOR LIVED. I REMEMBER ANOTHER BONDSMITH._ He went on reluctantly. _ANOTHER WINDRUNNER._

_Others?_

The rumble of the storm in the spren’s voice did not show in the clear, fresh-washed sweetness of the spring sky in the vision, in the breeze that played with the long curtains. _MUCH IS DIFFERENT. YET YOU ARE BOTH DIFFERENT AND UNCHANGED, NOT AS I HAD FEARED. THE THINGS YOU ARE MADE OF ARE THE SAME._ Dalinar knew that was as close as the Stormfather’s gruff pride would come to admitting wrong. _I DREAMED IT FOR YOU._

 _Thank you,_ Dalinar thought, overwhelmed by the gift. He held onto Kaladin clumsily, dreading the moment he would slip from his arms. Something caught his eye on a table by the low bed, and he reached out for it, taking hold of the brush and dipping it in ink. _Will this stay with him?_

When he came to himself alone in the storm shelter he felt a keen sense of the loss of Kaladin's warm body against his own.

Kaladin woke slowly in the darkness of that small sealed room, the glittering, almost imperceptible gemstone veins of the Sibling the only source of light. The dirty bedroll between him and the hard stone was tangled about his hips, and he heard Teft’s steady, slow breathing somewhere beside him. It had been weeks since Teft had fallen into his coma. The familiar, faint sound calmed Kaladin as he tried to sit up, propping himself up on his elbows, dark bruises protesting as he did so. They were safe, as safe as they could be, and for once his body was _tired_ but not strung out with razor-nerved, dizzy exhaustion. Even deep within the tower, he could feel the soft patter of the riddens that followed a highstorm. He closed his eyes, hugging himself, trying to recreate the feeling of Dalinar’s arms around him. And as he did so, tears welled in those eyes—eyes bleached light blue by constant combat.

It had been such a beautiful dream. 

An impossible dream. He shouldn’t have felt resigned, _surprised_ , to wake again in this place, as if it could have been real.

He reached out for his connection to Syl and she flew in as a ribbon of light, settling on Kaladin’s shoulder where his mussed hair tangled around his neck and leaning against it, apparently impervious to how grimy he was. “You finally slept!”

“I—” Kaladin’s breath caught. He didn’t _have_ good dreams. Not ones that didn’t hurt afterwards. He undid a pouch of spheres on instinct, letting a softly colored light saturate the room. If he couldn’t see the sky from the box they were in, at least he could imitate morning.

Syl hugged his dirty hair. “The storm was _alive!_ Where did you go? It felt like you were far away, but not bad, _right,_ and then you were _sleeping_. Actually sleeping, not...”

Kaladin muttered agreement. He felt his heart crack open at the word “right.” How could any of it have been? Things didn’t work out like that for Kaladin. Having... feelings... for his commanding officer only meant more pain in the future. It was like caring for his friends, yet worse, because there was no possibility that Dalinar could return what—his affection. Kaladin had known that for more than a year now, even if—if—

_I won’t forget you when we return._

It had felt so real. Not like a dream at all. Kaladin blushed, remembering.

Dalinar could have brought Kaladin into a vision, but why would he? He had even relieved him from active duty, so there would be no reason to make contact. Storms, Kaladin’s mind just _wanted_ him to, wished so badly to see him…

“Kaladin?” Syl said slowly. “Were you with _him_?”

 _Gemheart._ Could he have dreamed that? Kaladin had never dared to hope for so much. It quavered in his chest like a frightened songling whose trap had been unlocked.

Syl took the form of a young woman for a moment, manifesting a little to poke at his hand. He could feel her thrumming with excitement through their bond. Kaladin tried to snap out of it, his gaze focusing on his palm through the spren’s transparent skirt. There was smeared ink on his palm, a glyph painted in a clumsy hand forming a tower and a crown. He stared at it, stunned. Even if Kaladin hadn’t known how to read glyphs, he would have recognized the Kholin glyphpair.

“It can’t be true,” Kaladin stammered. “He—I—"

He fought to pick out the ink below it, closer to his wrist, the curves of the glyph extending over the heel of his hand. Kaladin’s knowledge of glyphs was military, medical, and it took him time to read this one. Then he read it again through blurring vision, sure he had made a mistake.

“Ohh. Love is in the middle,” Syl said, peering at it, a ribbon of light once more. “Your Bondsmith can’t write very well, can he? And I thought this was the script for men.”

“Beloved,” Kaladin whispered. He heard the impossible word in Dalinar’s voice. And then the rest of them, sweet and equally unreal, hitting him like a stormfront. _I won’t abandon you. I swear it with every shred of honor I have_.

He had heard those words before, when Dalinar traded a Blade worth kingdoms for the lives of Kaladin’s men. He could try to believe them again. To believe that Dalinar was right in doing so.

Deep within Urithiru, surrounded by darkness as complete as a cell in the Devotary of Mercy, Kaladin carefully pressed his ink-painted hand to his lips. He would hold as tightly as he could to that memory, to that hope in trust.

**Author's Note:**

> This idea started out as a chat LucyLovecraft and I had and she deserves all the credit for many character/ship things that we cooked up together and which I have now remixed! Though I take all the blame for this being a bunch of plot holes strung together on a necklace.
> 
> Title from the Barbara Kingsolver poem "How to Fly (in Ten Thousand Easy Lessons)" which has immense aspirational Fourth Ideal Kal vibes and is way better than this fic. The full line is "Behold your elements reassembled/as pieces of sky, ascending/without regret, for you’ve been lucky/enough."


End file.
